As the resident Archivist for the Steamlands Fiction Press, it is my duty to facilitate the Public’s broader understanding of the history, lore, and knowledge of the part of the World known as the Steamlands. I shall endeavor to fulfill that duty to the best of my humble abilities.
In preparation for this challenge, however, I must first acknowledge my own limitations, both circumstantial and personal.
Regarding the limitations of archivism
My personal limitations as an Archivist I shall humbly leave to the judgement of the Public to determine, with full confidence in their good faith and beneficence.
As any practitioner of the Archivist craft should agree, some small part of the limitations of our work stems from the lack of reliable archives pre-dating the Great Collapse. Generally considered to have reached its peak 426 years prior to this writing, the Great Collapse saw the loss and outright destruction of millennia of recordkeeping regarding the times preceding (and during) the Great Collapse itself. Much of the primary documents and materials that explain and illuminate the period known as the Aetate Brutalis are in fact fragmentary, despite the concerted efforts of scholars and archivists over the intervening generations. Scarcely a week goes by without some new finding or other artifact heretofore unknown to the profession making itself known to the world. Many of these findings confirm the broad narrative formed by scholars, but occasionally they prove anomalous, contradictory, and therefore challenging.
Should these occur, I intend to simply and humbly present them for the Public’s judgement, endeavoring – as the Archivist’s Guild dictates – to clearly demarcate the difference between known facts and any supposition or interpretation of any scholar or archivist with which it may be accompanied. Where possible and appropriate I shall essay to provide citation and reference of both the factual and interpretative material I provide.
To that end – and also in keeping with the Archivist’s Code – I shall make an effort to efface as far as possible my own identity so as not to encode any implicit or unintentional judgement. My job is to provide the Archive, not to create it.
The fortuitous news is that the era since the Great Collapse is far better documented. The result being that much of what I shall provide to the Public regarding the present day and recent past shall be far more reliable, barring of course the frailties of the humans through whose hands all things must pass.
And with that I embark upon what I consider to be both a noble and necessary quest.
And of course remain, your obedient servant.
